219 stories from Howard Sherman
Not to dash anyone's dreams, but I think it's fair to say that the majority of the hundreds of thousands of students who participate in high school theatre annually will not go on to profess…
To say that Newman University's production of the musical Legally Blonde was performed with its book and lyrics intact this past Saturday and Sunday would seem to be a wholly unremarkable ev…
As prestige movies open pell-mell in the next few weeks, and Oscar campaigns already underway blaze into full public awareness, one of the contenders will surely be The Imitation Game, starr…
A couple of years ago, in conversation with a childhood friend on Facebook, we began recalling the hours spent in my basement listening to the early comedy records of Bill Cosby. Suddenly, a…
When the news hit on Thursday, it flew around the New York theatre community as quickly as the unexpected closing of a Broadway show. The Cafe Edison on 47th Street is a fixture, one that…
In the song "The Book Report" from the musical You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, Lucy van Pelt struggles to complete her homework assignment: 100 words on Peter Rabbit. Falling short, she co…
Earlier this month, the administration at Maiden High School in Maiden, North Carolina tried to put a stop to the student production of John Cariani's Almost, Maine. With permission slips in…
As headlines go, "A challenge for the arts: Stop sanitizing and show the great works as they were created" embodies what many of us were taught in school about the well-made essay: tell peop…
Aside from being the month of copious pumpkin flavored foodstuffs, October also brings two perennial theatrical top ten lists that are worthy of note: American Theatre magazine's list of the…
A couple of weeks ago, yet another high school play was canceled over its content, this time at Santiago High School in Corona, California. Unlike the cases we often hear about, there was no…
I anticipate that this October will be the month of "freak," and not because of Halloween. Though that won't help. Because the media can't resist trend stories, and any three or more items w…
I am angry and I am sad. But I am not entirely surprised. Earlier this morning, Dawn Burch, drama director at South Williamsport Area Junior/Senior High School in Pennsylvania, was fired fro…
Even if I were to attend the Board of Education meeting of the South Williamsport Area School District in Pennsylvania this coming Monday, September 22, I couldn't speak. That's because the …
Among the many responses I've received to my accounts of the censorship of the musical Spamalot at South Williamsport Junior/Senior High in Pennsylvania was a tweet from Dane Rooney, an Engl…
Once each year, the world turns its eyes to Williamsport and South Williamsport PA, as young athletes from around the globe compete in the Little League World Series. This year has garnered …
There was a time, children, not so very long ago, when hit plays ran much longer than than 131 performances. Why 131? Because in the last ten complete Broadway seasons, that's the average of…
10 days ago, I was completely unaware that an Icelandic musical had established a beachhead in one of Off-Broadway's larger theatres. To be honest, I'd never given much thought to Icelandic …
Years from now, when the musical Wicked is eventually made available for school and amateur productions, will some high school administrator declare it inappropriate? After all, among its ma…
The arrival of a new movie trailer online is received with a level of excitement and scrutiny that once waited for the film itself; even photos get analyzed in depth, as the recent hubbub ov…
One of the many achievements of Ira Glass's This American Life is that it is a longform approach to storytelling, whether personal or reportorial. By not dumbing down, by not sound-biting, i…
Perhaps you knew it as a place to cool off, use the bathroom or grab some free wi-fi. You may have passed through it on your way to an office in the building known variously as 156…
On July 2, I wrote about a situation at South Williamsport, Pennsylvania's Jr/Sr High School, where a production of Monty Python's Spamalot, slated for 2015, was canceled, reportedly due to …
"I chop down trees, I wear high heels, suspenders and a bra. I wish I'd been a girlie, just like my dear papa." My friends and I happily sang those Monty Python lyrics, at the drop of a h…
When Randy Newman's Faust receives a one-night concert presentation this week as part of City Center's Encores! Off Center series, its NYC debut could be the end of the road or a new begi…
"Off record tip: Wondering if you've noticed that there's someone missing from the Women's Project masthead on their website." That's the direct messaged tweet I received yesterday morning. …
